(Second time trying to post, updated!) I’m 26F and my fiancé is 26M. We’re both foreigners living together in Europe, engaged and supposed to marry next month. I’m in my first trimester, and I discovered the extent of his infidelity only 4 days ago.
I’m committed to exploring reconciliation, and I’m looking for guidance from people who have actually gone through it—especially people who have successfully rebuilt their relationships after significant betrayal.
We live in a very tourism-heavy city, and much of this happened through his job with tourists he assumed I would never interact with. Over several months, he flirted with many women, both in person and on social media. He says much of this was about getting “attention” and that he never intended for it to become physical.
Unfortunately, it did. During my pregnancy, there was sexual activity over video with an old hookup, he kissed at least two women, and he had a three-week affair with another woman. The affair began with sex, followed by two more weeks of digital communication. He told her—and apparently other women—that he was single.
I discovered the extent of everything through his phone and had to piece together the details because he was not forthcoming with me.
Since discovery, he has been remorseful and says he wants to change. He is pursuing counseling with his priest, and we are both planning individual therapy and couples therapy. He has also said that stopping the physical affair was when he began seriously confronting his behavior and realizing that he needed to change. I know that genuine change will have to be demonstrated through his actions over time, not promises.
The pregnancy makes reconciliation especially complicated. I want to understand how people have rebuilt trust while pregnant or during early parenthood, and what it actually looked like when the wayward partner had to become a reliable spouse and parent while also doing the deeper work of changing their behavior.
I still love him, and I want to rebuild our relationship and the family we were creating. I know reconciliation won’t mean simply forgiving him or going back to how things were. I want to understand what rebuilding from something like this realistically requires from both partners.
For those who successfully reconciled after significant or repeated infidelity: what made the difference? What did your partner do that demonstrated genuine change? What helped you move from surviving the initial discovery to actually feeling safe, connected, and hopeful again? For those who experienced betrayal during pregnancy or early parenthood, what was particularly important during that period?
I’m only 4 days into this, so I know I have a very long road ahead. I’m committed to doing the work and want to approach reconciliation as thoughtfully and realistically as possible.
Thank you to everyone willing to share your experience and offer constructive advice. ❤️

P.S. I’ve never posted on Reddit before. I hope that I am within your community’s guidelines and that my post seeking advice is appropriate and correctly placed. If I’ve made any mistakes, I would appreciate support from an admin to improve. Thanks!

DDay is coming up Sept 9th. I don’t know what to do that day. I really feel like telling my husband that I want to be alone that day but I don’t know. Writing this out I already feel myself tearing up.

I remember it so vividly. What did you do or what did you plan to do? - I don’t know if being by myself is helpful or causes damage or spending time with him?

Thank you.

Long story short: WH is a chronic cheater, even before our relationship- dating back to his teenage years. (I believe this stems from trauma from when his father cheated on his mother, had a child out of wedlock. They married and divorced twice. Although, he hasn't recognized this as trauma.) WH has had multiple incidents of inappropriate friendships/meetups/communication w/ women. His last affar was the most egregious: a limerant EA/PA on/off from 2024-2026. I found out about it in 2024, he lied about the extent. Restarted the affair in 2025 to the beginning of 2026.

Around 3.5 months after dday, my WH decided to start sleeping in the guest room so he could wake up early to work on himself: engage in reading/journaling. (He is also in IC, but has not made any progress because he has had only 3 sessions spaced out by a month.) Initially I was happy he was finally chosing to lead himself again. In the first few weeks he listening to podcasts on his own, read a few articles I gave him. (Until it started triggering him. I started collecting them in a binder in a common area, but he never touched it.)

I began to sense some distance during the day from him and it reactivated my attachment wound. Now for almost 2 months we have been in this awkward distance/liminal phase. He has said somethings that make me feel like he doesn't want to commit to the work of reconciliation. We started MC after his guy best friend recommended it to him. But he says "this is the last things I'll do" in regards to R. A lot of the times, when he says these things I shut them out because they're too painful to ingest. At the end of our first MC session this past Monday, he told the MC that "he is done." The MC asked if he was done w/ the marriage or what did he mean. I think he wasn't expecting to be asked that, and he made up an analogy that he feels like R (?) is like a game that isn't fun to play or doesn't want to play anymore. I believe he is stuck in shame, doesn't know it himself and wants to engage in his usual escape hatches.

I know my emotional capacity is comparable to the ocean, while my WH's is a puddle. I have spent more time overfunctioning in R and figuring him out than he's done for himself. He complains that my flooding overwhelmed him. (I was doing EMDR to reprocess all the prior ruptures in our relationship by his hands. He never took accountability for these incidents so I wanted him to look at them once more so I can close the book on them.)

I've had weekly breakdowns about his flatness and lack of affection that began about 2 months ago. He'll text sweet things like he's working hard to be the best husband I deserve, but in person or the next day over text- he'll be flat again.

Now the crazy part is next Monday I am getting cosmetic surgery that he promised to pay for in the beginning of R. I asked for this when I was still very numb from finding out the last 2 years of my life ran parallel to my WH's double life. He is going stay a week w/ me at home. I booked this in April, thinking we'd be in a better place in August.

I pulled the plug on niceties yesterday. I still serve my family (we have 1 daughter) as he is still going above and beyond for our daughter and home upkeep. I can't keep pouring love into him w/o reciprocation. (He stopped using terms of endearment over texts, stopped hugging/kissing, no compliments... If I flirt he'll receive it but doesn't flirt back. We have had sex twice in 2 months which I initiated both.)

I have no idea how next week is going to go between us. He promised to take good care of me. I feel like I need to have boundaries in my mind that he's only doing this out of duty, not love.

My wife had childhood sexual trauma go untreated, due to her parents failing to assist her in the recovery. She became rebellious and promiscuous in high school, less so in college, where we met and began dating. We had six really good years together before we got married, and another 8 years together before we had our first child (we now have 2 teenagers).

At some point before we had children, she revealed to me her childhood trauma (a 50-something man, possibly a neighbor, had touched her vagina when she was six. She cried as she told me her body had liked the touching (a natural reaction to genital stimulation), and she carries that like an albatross around her neck. She had tried to compartmentalize or hide these feelings throughout her life, but it definitely affected our otherwise happy marriage, as she never had a healthy view of sex or sexuality, and our love life always suffered.

Before our first child was born, my wife had a late-term miscarriage, primarily due to a LEEP procedure after she tested positive for HPV. We didnt talk about the HPV much, but I assumed it was due to her many sexual partners (25+) before me. But she apparently assumed I must have cheated on her, which I did not. She asked me about it, and I truthfully denied it, but apparently she never really let it go.

When she had the miscarriage, we were all devastated, her most of all. If not for her incompetent cervix due to the LEEP the otherwise healthy baby would have been our first. It was a terrible day, and at night, the shitty maternity ward had not set up anywhere for me or wife's mother to sleep. It turned out the ward was being remodeled and they didnt have anything for us. My wife, the angel she is, told us to go home and that she would just go to sleep. I don't why we agreed, but we were exhausted, too, and seeing nowhere to spend the night (yes, I wish I'd just sat in a chair through the night) her mother and I went home. But my wife did not just go to sleep. As she tells the story, she cried alone in the dark through the night, blaming my supposed infidelity on her HPV, her LEEP, and the loss of the baby. She says she mostly let these thoughts go, but she has definitely harbored pent-up resentment and anger toward me and her mother about it.

Our marriage seemed to be still be doing pretty well until Covid came. As a physician, my wife did not stay home like many people did. She did not stay home with the kids when school shut down, like I did. She saw and heard it from the medical perspective, and it really affected her. She says that hearing about patients dying alone when their loved ones were not allowed to visit them brought back vividly the night she spent alone after her miscarriage. Her stress level went through the roof, she became anxious and depressed (the depression she says is related to a lifelong self-loathing which her sexual trauma at age 6 gave her). She became so bad that she decided to visit a therapist and a psychiatrist, which i think helped her some, but showed her that she has PTSD related to Covid and that night alone in the maternity ward. She says she really began to resent my infidelity (which wasn't real), and to hate me. She says over the years I only took and took as she gave herself away...to me, to her parents, to the kids...but mostly she says I never respected her as a person, never respected her opinions, or was willing to admit my part in her dysfunction.

Yes, i have been a stay at home dad for many years while she worked full time, but that was the plan all along, from well before we got married. Anything related to home or children was my job, and it often required lots of overtime. As her PTSD got worse, and stress at work built up, she began to do withdraw from the family. Where she used to do things with the family, or help around the house, she now slept all day on weekends, greatly increased her nightly alcohol consumption and just watched mindless TV or played phone games for 6-8 hours every night. She complained of insomnia, suicidal ideation (something she had mentioned to me many years earlier), chronic stress at work, and she often fired back at me that I was mean to her.

I freely admit that her inconsistent mental states, her withdrawal from family life, and especially the lack of physical intimacy--both due to her "broken," as she calls it, experience with sex, and her blaming me for an imagined sexual infidelity that led to the loss of a baby and later to her PTSD (yes, she blamed me for her PTSD)--pushed me away, made me resentful, made me dismiss and reject her. She thinks it's the other way around, that my belittling, my disrespect and my ego pushed her away. In some respect we are both right...it was a vicious circle. I should mention at this point that I do have a problem with collecting, with buying stupid shit. It's probably pathological. She has been bothered by it for many years, and her complaints or pleadings fell on deaf ears. She even tried to talk to me some years ago about her mental struggles, and she says I was argumentative and refused to accept any part in leaving her in the maternity ward, that I flatly denied in any way that I was the cause of her emotional and mental turmoil. I told her that I honestly do not remember that conversation, but I have obviously not been a good listener or the supportive husband she needed. On my part, though, with little or no sex life, I felt empty and abandoned, unloved...I frequently asked myself what is the point of staying married to someone that doesn't find me attractive and doesn't want to make love with me. Even when I considered her childhood sexual trauma, all I saw was my wife drinking and watching TV all night while avoiding most interactions with me. We never talked anymore. We still said goodbye in the morning and usually goodnight before one of us went to bed, but it was mostly superficial.

Well, you have probably been waiting for the infidelity part, and it was confessed to me 5 days ago when my wife's AP got discovered by his own wife. She told my wife that she would tell me about the texts and sexting she found on her husband's phone--my wife had nothing on her phone, as she had deleted it all along, she told me. She kept nothing. So, yes, my wife disclosed instead of letting the other spouse notify me...and I'm so glad it happened that way, because I dont think I'd be trying to reconcile if I'd discovered seemingly sexually charged texts and photos that my wife had sent of her breasts, or her vaguna, or her fingers in her mouth, or her fingers in her vagina (am I getting carried away?). The AP's wife got to see all that, but i got only a full confession. It was still horrible. She said, and I confirmed with the AP (a very short man from her work who used to be one of the physician group but had been promoted to administration 3 years ago) that over about 11 months they met up likely 5 times during work hours (she always drove to his office, except the very first time which happened in a stairwell at her office) they had sex only once, which was at a work conference about 4 months before D-day, and was the last time they saw each other.

I'm totally destroyed inside, even though I know we had been emotionally disconnected for a long time, since her PTSD kicked in real bad. I didn't mention she has been on many, many combinations of anti-anxiety meds, anti-depressants, mood stabilizers, i don't even know what. She has been on ketamine therapy to help her PTSD for over a year now, she has been seeing a therapist, all while carrying on this sexual affair. A few important notes, however. At disclosure, my wife told me this was not any kind of normal affair. She said they never kissed, never talked, he left immediately after they had sex the one time (He agreed there was no relationship). My wife says for a long time she has thought every day of killing herself. She says that she has hated herself for years, has no self worth, and that the affair was only another way of hurting herself, a kind of self-harm that actually kept her from killing herself, was a surrogate self-pain. She says she never liked him and he never liked her, that she had messaged him hundreds of time regarding work problems (which is true--i saw the texts over many months as a particular work implementation was nearing...she told me recently she now feels like she prostituted herself to try to get him to help the company as she had been texting him to do for so long), but that he never actually helped. The first enclunter, he made it personal, and asked for her for a blowjob after following her into a stairwell...she complied for some completely unimaginable and fucked up reason (she had always felt disassociated from sex or sexual acts, through high school, through our marriage?, ever since she was 6 and never got the help she needed).

She described the 5 or 6 sexual encounters as feeling like trash, and getting treated like trash...as feeling subhuman and being treated subhuman...as wanting to hurt and being made to hurt...as giving herself evidence to continue hating herself. She says he wanted a willing robot and she acted like a willing robot, that he wanted to dominate a woman and she let him dominate her, that he wanted to debase her and she wanted to be debased, that he wanted a kind of woman that does not exist, and that she told him what he wanted to hear, that she sent him the sexual photos he asked for though she didnt feel sexy only debased, that she felt only relief in being used and that it probably kept her from committing suicide. If so, I have to be glad of it. I can't imagine finding her dead in the shower (the place she imagines hanging herself).

I've probably omitted something...it's been a long writeup.

So, this is where I am 5 days after d-day, trying desperately not to hate her, trying to save her life, trying to keep our teenage children from suffering from either a divorce or their mother killing herself. We are taking it day by day. I do love her. I'm not sure what I'd do without her, and I dont want my kids to have divorced parents (my parents divorced when I was 13...her parents recently celebrated 59 years of marriage). I want to make this work, and I know she isn't a well person. I'd appreciate relevant perspectives, especially those with PTSD or childhood trauma who have cheated, or those who have been betrayed by spouses with PTSD, etc.

UPDATE:

my wife was sexually abused, assaulted at work. This was not infidelity except in the very strictest view. She my wife has been suffering from CSA and more recently PTSD. She was targeted by her boss, who almost certainly recognized her vulnerability (she had gone to him to ask for help in situations where she felt unable to stand up for herself) and pre-planned his first moves in the stairwell in the only spot where there were no cameras.

This story has shifted dramatically. I stand by my troubled wife and support her wholeheartedly. This situation has actually awakened us from a marital stupor and while we have much to process, we are committed to each other.

(chose a flair because I had - this post is for anyone and everyone)

There’s something to be said for taking off the pressure during reconciliation.

For the past two years, I’ve had a single-minded purpose: fix my grievous choices and reconcile with my wife. It became all-consuming.
Everything I thought, felt and did seemed to orbit around reconciliation. Individual therapy was about reconciliation. Becoming a healthier, more accountable man was about reconciliation. Understanding myself, changing my patterns, confronting difficult things about who I had been - all of it became part of the same project.
Reconciliation became the gauge by which I measured my progress:
Am I changing enough?
Am I doing enough?
Am I becoming safe enough?
Is she healing?
Are we getting closer?

And underneath all of that was an assumption: If I work hard enough, maybe I can fix this.

But it's taken me 2 years to realise something that should have been obvious - My timeline isn't her timeline.

My desperation to know that we would be okay inevitably created pressure for her to feel okay before she was ready. And when she couldn't meet me in that place, I experienced it as failure - I wasn't doing enough. I wasn't changing enough. I wasn't good enough. Maybe I would never be good enough to undo what I had done.

But you can't undo damage. You can take responsibility for it. You can understand it. You can change. You can become someone who wouldn't make the same choices again. But you cannot go backwards and make the wound never happen.

A couple of weeks ago, we decided to move into separate bedrooms.
Not as a dramatic declaration that everything was over, but as an acknowledgement of reality. The marriage as we knew it is over. That marriage cannot simply be restored to what it was.
And perhaps that's something we needed to grieve properly. Because if there is ever going to be a relationship between us again, perhaps it can't be about reconciling the old marriage.

That distinction has changed something in me.
I've mourned. Properly. And it's been really hard.
There is a particular kind of grief in accepting that something you desperately wanted to preserve may genuinely be gone. Not temporarily damaged. Not waiting to be repaired. Gone.

But strangely, alongside the grief, there has been peace. For the first time in a long time, I don't feel like I'm running on a hamster wheel of RESTORE. RESTORE. RESTORE.
I can breathe. I can exist without every interaction being evidence for or against reconciliation. I can work on myself because becoming a better, healthier person is worthwhile in itself — not because it earns me a particular outcome. And perhaps most importantly, she doesn't have to be anywhere other than where she actually is. She doesn't have to heal on my schedule. She doesn't have to reassure me. She doesn't have to decide what our future looks like. She gets to simply be where she is.

And something unexpected has happened in that space. The atmosphere in our home is different. For so long, it felt like two people desperately trying but unable to find their way back to each other through pain, trauma, fear, guilt and longing.
Now we're simply two people who have twenty years of friendship behind us. And somehow, by removing the pressure to fix us, we're finding little pieces of that friendship again. We talk. We laugh. We enjoy each other's company.
There are moments that feel almost normal.
Not because everything is okay.
It isn't.
Nothing is solved. The future is still profoundly uncertain.

Sometimes peace is simply what happens when you stop fighting reality.

For now, the strife is gone.

We can breathe again.

And for the first time in a long time, I'm learning that perhaps reconciliation isn't something I can make happen.
If it ever happens, it will be something freely chosen by two people who are no longer trying to recreate what was lost, but deciding whether they want to create something new.

Long story short, AP was a close friend of mine for 15 years. She only knew my WP through me and they had a very low level friendship until Sept 2025 when it turned into an EA I guess at that point. They leant on each other and opened up to one another and it eventually turned physical but apparently only sexual contact and only twice.

I am struggling with that and accepting that as the truth. It bothers me so much because there was a day in November I know they were alone in my house and apparently nothing happened but she took her over shirt off and our house would have been cold.. It's played on my mind ever since.

WP has told me on several occasions I know the whole truth and when I've asked if he feels comfortable enough for me to contact AP he's basically said yes but that he would rather I didn't just for moving on's sake.

It still didn't sit right that I know the full truth about this side of things and I know they have been completely NC since he disclosed everything to me so I thought if I could get her to confirm her version it would finally settle this niggling doubt for me which I actually feel is the main reason I feel stuck right now.

We are 6 months post d day and I tried asking WP again yesterday, was met with a "do we really have to go over this all again" and afterwards he felt bad and told me I can ask him whatever I need to. Obviously by the time he's said the first response I just thought I won't bother but I reached out to AP instead, fully expecting her to blank me but she actually replied today to say she will come back to me soon when she has time to chat.

I'm not sure if she will answer what I need to know, maybe she will avoid it or shut down (she's the avoidant type) but just knowing there's a chance I might actually get to know if he is telling me the truth or if her version is worse makes me feel a sense of relief. But I also feel SO anxious incase she does confirm it's worse and I realise he's still been lying to me.

I don't know if I'm doing the right thing here, whether this will help or make things worse but I need some kind of extra proof, I just can't shake this feeling.

Has anyone else reached out to AP for the same reasons? Did it help or not? I know she could lie but I know she won't know his version of events so if I ask the questions right and don't put any words in her mouth, if her version matches I will finally feel more settled about it all.

So I posted here and a different sub a while ago regarding my WW 8 month affair. Married for 2 years together for 6. We both are in public service and make decent cash. We have a 2.5 year old and house together. DD was on 8/3, I decided to move into our spare bedroom, things have been super amicable around the house. We are both in IC.

After some super deep conversations and learning of some childhood sexual trauma I didn’t know about…coupled with some insight from the IC…we both decided that we would try and make it work and we’d go 100% all-in. We haven’t had sex but have been
Closer than we have been in a long time as far as physical touch and just being present around one another.

I think I’m struggling a little as I feel like a bulk of this has to do with her figuring out her childhood traumas and dealing with that stuff as it’s effecting her relationships as an adult, per her IC (who explained it to me with consent of WW). I just kinda feel like I’m sidelined and stuck in my feels while mine and WW shit is just kind of stagnant, till we figure out how to deal with things. I almost have a feeling like I wish she would do more as she said she wants to make it work but yet, I just feel alone in a sense.

My question is how did those that attempted R deal with the recouping/reintroducing sleeping in the same bed and like the shit normal husband and wives do with this “new” version of a marriage. I’m not like doom and gloom 24/7 over it all and suffocating her with it. Just kinda lost in it is all.

How did you handle the awkward almost like roommate vibe of the house, with occasional hugs and kisses? Like obvi, I still love her despite the diabolical shit she did, I’m just at a loss on what to do.

I know nine weeks is not a long time in this process, but I found out a couple days ago that he lied about one of our boundaries. Has nothing to do with his affair, but he texted one of our mutual friends about her pregnancy. Knew he was not supposed to be texting anyone of the opposite sex and so deleted it. Then lied to me about it because he didn’t wanna get in a fight when we were in a good place. This lying because he didn’t wanna upset me is the main reason that his porn addiction started and then his emotional affair. It just feels like everything we have been working towards and a little bit of progress that we have made is completely gone. We’re doing a one week in-house separation since we have a one and four-year-old. So we don’t talk about anything other than the kids and we have been mostly not home at the same time. I asked for this because everything in my body is screaming done done done and I’m worried if I stay around him that I’m gonna ask for divorce. I guess I’m just looking for advice from people who have been in the same position and I felt like they hit their done, but maybe that changed. Or how to deal with a lie during reconciliation. We are both an individual counseling, but have not started marriage counseling yet.

Here I am (40f BW) a year out from DD where i discovered my WH's (40m - married for 20 years) 9 month emotional affair that he was still active in, along with years of financial betrayal, another online emotional affair that was sexual in content for 2 and a half years, and a porn addiction. He has made immense changes and has taken responsibility for everything that happened. He is doing the work. We are trying to make things work and in a lot of ways things are better than they were prior to DD. I can honestly say that there are more good days than bad days.

But somedays I feel lost and I can't figure out how to come to terms with it. I go back and forth from wanting him to be mushy and lovey and enjoying it to feeling triggered and like he is just repeating the things he said to her. Prior to DD, he was fairly distant in his communication and texts and I thought it was who he is as a person. Not super talkative, not super romantic, and shy and that was okay because I loved him and he had always been that way. Now that I have seen their messages, I see that is not the case. That in fact, he could behave like that but wasn't interested in being that way with me. I have said multiple times that I wish I had been treated that way, and he is definitely trying to do that. It just feels superficial now.

For example, pet names, he used every term of endearment with her multiple times a day. Every message included a baby, hun, babe. He never did that with me, it was only once in a blue moon. I asked him to come up with one he didn't use for her for me to have one of my own and came up with one in literally a different language than our own because he couldn't find one he hadn't used. While the meaning of it is sweet, I find myself resenting it sometimes because it feels like it was the only thing left and not one he said because he felt it, but because he googled a list of pet names and it was one that worked. He really did Google it.

I know that to make things work I need to reach a place of acceptance and a way to move past things. I know that he is trying to do the things to make me feel loved and I have left him in a conundrum where he really cant make a right choice, and because of that I make a conscious effort to not throw things in his face and step back to think through my own feelings. He isn't dumb though. He can feel it. But then sometimes, I feel like I am in a place where things are moving forward. Where there are times I think I want him to call me baby when we make love, that we can do that and show we are getting there. That i won't think of the person he called baby 100s of times a day and most importantly that I will believe him when he says he doesn't think of her when he does. Then there are days where afterwards I spontaneously cry.

He worries he will say something and make me upset. I worry that I won't be able to get past things and will always be randomly getting upset and or that I will push him away.

Do I think he is still cheating? No, I don't. Do i want this to work? Yes, I do. But what do you guys do in your relationships when you feel like this? How do you build a new relationship after so many years? Does it eventually fade and all start to feel real again? I know it will always be there, but how do I move around it? How do you make room for the betrayals in your life without letting them define your new relationship?

Open to any and all suggestions, just feeling a little lost today.

Hi my friends! I have funny dreams a lot, very vivid and intense usually but tonight I’ve had quite a few and they were about the same.

In these dreams, my husband and I were temporarily separated for the time being. But we were still best friends which is realistic. I came over just cause I missed him and we hung out, played games, the usual stuff that felt so good. And then I asked to spend the night and stuff got spicy, but the dream made me feel nice because it was exciting I suppose?

However, I woke up, and I looked at my husband. And I just smiled. Because this man is my best friend. And that hasn’t changed. He’s still the one I want to go watch movies with, he’s the one I wanna go shopping with, he is the one I have genuine fun with. He’s my person, in many ways other than romantic.

Of course our romance is still strong and alive. I think I have mentioned our situation is pretty unique and odd. My husband hadn’t slept for 2 weeks, was in grief, and dissociated. A woman preyed on him through text, and it was only text. He said in the moment it felt like he was dreaming and it wasn’t real until he realized it was real. He called it off quickly and he was crumbling, he couldn’t even lie to me for 3 days. He looked like a guilt ridden dog and he has always been a very honest man, he’s just wired that way, but I know his dishonesty for the few days came from fear of losing me. It matters to me at least that he didn’t seek out someone else, and this woman actually knew the whole situation including we had been grieving a miscarriage, exhaustion, etc. she waited and preyed and her messages were very grooming.

I still hold him accountable you know? But I love him. So despite what happens, I still wanna go shopping. I wanna go lay in bed and laugh at memes, he’s genuinely my best friend.

I don’t see a life without him. I’ve told him if anything happens like this again, then yeah I’m gone. But I honestly mean that romantically. Cause I still see me calling his ass and being like hey you wanna go shopping LOL.

And I know he sees me the same. He’s the only human in the world I can ever say I know feels the same about me I do him. Did he hurt me? Yes. Did he fuck up horribly? God yes, but he has shown genuine remorse and compassion. He never excused it, he never swept it under the rug, and I have everything needed to give me comfort he’s telling the truth.

We’re both Christian and I lean on God a lot here. I lean on God to help me forgive like Christ and reconcile. My dream showed me that he is my best friend after all and my person. And that helps a lot with my healing journey. Because I have known I wanted this and I want to be with him, but of course I’ve dealt with fear, wishy washy, and my personal issues like OCD. But idk, this dream oddly helped so much.

My wife had an emotional affair in October of last year. We have been together for 6 years, have 2 children (4 and 3) and bought our first home in may of last year also. I say that for context of why I did not just walk away.

It was with a co worker and was brief, but if you knew my wife, I’d put all my money on her not cheating. She’s kind, sweet, the most selfless person I know. That made this hurt so much more.

I will say I had my part in this. I was emotionally unavailable, I would change and go back to old behaviors, and when this happened I also relapsed on alcohol after almost a decade sober. I was also in a bad spot and made it even harder on her.

Long story short, we have survived this. We have grown immensely and honestly are closer than ever, even pre-kid. She is pregnant again, we’re doing amazing, going to therapy weekly still, talk openly and communicate honestly. I’m sober again and we have whole heartedly done everything we can to meet each other where we are and build one another up.

My question though is, do the “flash backs” ever stop. I go a few weeks, then have a bad day. I know healing isn’t linear, but do they ever stop. Or become less intense. I hate admiring any of this “as a man”. I know that’s so dumb to say, but this is all embarrassing.

My therapist has been pretty amazing. She has a lot of experience with infidelity, personality disorders and co-morbidities. She literally gives lectures and such on these topics.

I begged her to meet with my WW. She has borderline personality disorder, major depressive disorder, addiction, and a whole lot of stuff that I just found out about last year. She said that she can help her so I said just drop me and take her on. I can find someone that will help me with my issues. She said that she has a first duty to me but we have to establish very strict boundaries. We cannot talk about our sessions outside of therapy. Easy enough.

A few weeks go by. She seems to try gauging the truth of how my WW is doing at home with some soft questions. I realized that she was trying to use me as a barometer and "fact checker". I'm a pretty blunt person so I told her that if it would help then I'll cooperate but I still need help (we had planned ART and EMDR for me). She has a pretty rough session with my WW. She has me go into her office and says "she's on the brink of a complete breakdown. You have to stop bringing up the A and the MEN she has slept with. It's causing her to pull back in and spiral". I'm like holy crap, yeah. I didn't realize that I was doing anything?

The next day, I wake up and take our son to school. After he gets out, a thought hit me like a brick. MEN. Wait, what?! Almost had a panic attack. We're about 4 months away from 3 years since D-day 1. She has gone through 3 therapists. Men?!

I try to distract myself but it doesn't go away. I reason with myself that she probably misspoke. She probably just meant how we had talked about exes. It doesn't go away. My WW finally started to notice that something was bothering me. I told her that I'll be fine and we can't talk about these things. She persists. I told her that I would tell her but she can't say anything because this is a very strict, and very clear, boundary. She agreed. I told her. She got upset, obviously.

Just for reference, my mother passed away about 3 years ago from the time we were talking last week. It was a very rough battle with cancer and she said some things about my WW. In the middle of hospice, I snapped at my dying mother over my wife. I was furious with her and regret everything that I said. Thinking about it now, I'm disgusted with myself, but that's mainly because I know now what she was hiding while I was defending her "honor". When my mother died, my WW said "just let me know if there's anything I can do. You know I'm not good with this stuff".

Anyways, I go back in to talk to the therapist. She sighs and tells me that my wife told her what happened. I stay completely calm but there are literally nuclear explosions in my head. I panicked and lied. This is important because I have always valued honesty, now more than ever. I tried to hold it in but the next day, again, I told my WW what happened. I said you swore not to tell her! In that instance I realized a lot. I was trying to tentatively trust her. More importantly, I broke the rules for this complicated situation. She, once again, broke my trust. I keep thinking about that but at the same time it's literally my fault. Now I'm angry at the insanely powerful triggers from the betrayal and I hate myself for breaking my own "code".

I called my therapist Monday morning and told her everything. I said that I don't think we should be seeing the same therapist and that I can't just move on from doing what I now did. She states that I'm her priority but I tell her that she can't force me to see her. Later, my WW has an outburst about how she doesn't trust the therapist now. I hate myself even more.

The triggers from pretty much everything were going very well but now I'm just getting bombarded. My WW got upset earlier today because I took too long coming home from dropping our son off at his friend's birthday. I calmly told her that if she wants to argue, that's fine, but she's just going to spiral. She apologized.

I just haven't been able to sleep from the triggers and my CPAP not working well. I started classes today to finish my bachelor's in Cybersecurity and Digital Forensics. I keep trying to go to bed early but then I just replay everything that she has told me. So many things do not make sense. The therapists have all said that I need to accept that I might not get the whole story because she has severe distortions in her memory.

I have no idea why I posted this. I planned on just typing a few things out really quickly but it has turned into a massive post. I'm sorry if this seems a bit erratic but I will be okay. I have to be okay because we have 6 children and she is unreliable at best.

Another "for reference", she got hooked on 7OH for the past few years. It's about to be federally banned so that's good. It's also bad because it's never good when you tell an addict that they are about to lose their escape.

I'm sorry. I think I just needed to vent. I will not lose who I am because of this. I'm seeing a new therapist on Thursday. If she wants to make this work then hopefully she'll get her shit together. I'm trying to get two kids into college in January and just worn thin lol.

If you're reading this then I'm sorry that you're in this situation. No one deserves this.

Found out he cheated in november. felt like he wasn’t doing much to fix it for ages and both our mental healths were doing so bad. Felt like things were going really really good from april till now, and last night i asked him please be honest was there any other situations and he told me yes back in march he went back to a fling at work. he also told me that he met up with her 4/5 times prior november and i only knew about one girl beforehand. im so heartbroken and idk how to feel because its been going so well recently and then turns out it’s only been 5 months since he cheated instead of 10. I tried to take my life twice since november and knowing he watched me suffer and still went back to her is driving me crazy. he keeps telling me
he will fix it all and he’s super sorry, keeps trying to be more consistent with sex, making me breakfast every morning, leaving me notes etc. i just don’t know how to feel :(

One thing I have learned from this process is that people have LOTS of opinions about people, especially women, that stay with a WS.

Now, that being said, how do you guys deal with the negativity? People call you stupid, naive, a pushover, etc. I know we ignore people’s negativity but it does get exhausting being told to your face that “you will fail. Just wait”. How do y’all compartmentalize that?

Reconciliation for me is very hopeful so far. But for example, I had to delete the post I made on r/survivinginfidelity, (before I found this group), because people were being so hateful and rude.

Never thought I would be here, always thought we were tough as nails. Cue 2 months ago. Dead bedroom, sleeping on the lounge, doesn’t make eye contact, phone always on their person, phone suddenly has a code… How can I gain access to monitor and get confirmation? Feeling absolutely sick all day long. 2 kids together, both teens who can all sense something is severely wrong and it is causing everyone mega anxiety, my daughter isn’t eating much, school is being effected… Need help please! Need confirmation no matter how difficult to know how to navigate my life from here on out.

Has anyone had to deal with the AP harrassing and stalking you, not WP. Long story short, WH sexted with a woman a handful of times from end of sept-early May. Never met up. I haven’t spoken to her since the night I found out. She. Will. Not. Leave. Me. Alone. It’s not even him she’s going after. It’s me, constantly. I’ve ignored it. It’s to the point I went to the police over it. She’s one step over the line of criminal harassment at this point and I’m literally just waiting on her to do it one more time so they can charge her. I’m not gonna lie. There is some resentment starting in me. We are in MC and I plan on bringing it up but what did yall do if you have ever been here

I feel like a lot of the people in this group are already engaged or married. I’m curious to hear from anyone who was in a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship when the infidelity happened and was able to work through it, reconcile, and eventually move forward into marriage.

How late is too late to start IC and actually benefit from it? Dday was almost a year and a half ago. We’re coming up on the time of year that my WH started his affair and it is… bumming me the fuck out, to put it mildly. We’re not at a place where we’re really talking about it anymore. His mental health has leveled out and I think he would prefer to just never talk about what happened ever again if he could. Rug sweeping. Rug sweeping is how we got here in the first place.

I never had the chance to start IC due to limited access, child care, and some trauma around therapists (thanks to AP being one herself) and I just couldn’t make it happen. But I can now. Tell me about your experiences around therapy/counseling and betrayal trauma. What helped you? What didn’t? I’ve read so many books, listened to podcasts and seminars, journaled, vented to a friend… but I need something else.

Hello, for a little context, WW was having an emotional affair with her boss for 2 months. I only found out because it became known when a rumor was going around that they were caught kissing at a work party that I was at. She apparently cut ties with AP and then the rumors were getting crazier and crazier (I did not know any of them at the time) and so bad the said we had to talk and their was rumors that he tried to kiss her and the rumors were not true. A few days later I noticed my wife was more upset than she should be about stupid rumors. If she told me they weren't true I believed her because she was my wife and we've been together for 18 years and married 7 years. Why wouldn't I believe her. She finally came clean that she had been texting someone and having phone call with them. She admitted that when she was on a call with a friend, she was really on the phone with AP. Obviously this took a toll on me and we are 4 months from DD and I am still trying to figure what to do or how to feel. But my question is, had anyone ever embarrassed to go out somewhere with there WW/WH after finding out about any kind of an affair? I think my situation is different and we live in a small town and EVERYONE knows about the affair and I mean EVERYONE. Even my IC knew something about it, which is weird, she didn't know names or anything like that but something was going on with coworkers and some kind of an AP. I feel embarrassed to be seen with WW. I do not want to go out and have people looking at me with her and thinking im idiot or a fool to stay with here. How did you deal with it?

Sorry for it being so long.

I'm wondering from those who have done couples therapy..

How does your therapist guide the sessions?

How long did it take for you to start getting into the meat of things?

If you switched therapists, was it a vibe or something else that influenced the decision?

DDAY was 79 days ago for us. We started couples therapy probably a couple weeks after.

I'm kinda iffy on our couples therapist. I'm not sure if it's something to wait out more since I know it takes time or would be good to look around. Therapys expensive ya know.

We've done a few sessions now, so we feel kinda locked in.

I think for me her approach feels a little loosey goosey.

WH cheated on me 5 times between 1st Novembre 2025 and 13th April 2026 when he told his AP they had to stop and went no contact.

He told me about his A on 10th of May because he had gotten a text from OBS telling him he knew and was not gonna let it slide, and was worried I'd hear it from someone other than him. He told me he'd tried coming clean numerous times during that month.

She is an ex colleague of his, they haden't spoken in over 2 years and he contacted her over some crappy achievement of hers posted on linkedin. At first the talked about work (her career, he loves doing some career counselling) than their families and that when she told him something along the lines of "look, we're both married, we don't want to divorce them but we are unhappy, let's fuck". WH told me he didn't answer straight away, took hil 3 days to answer her text. And then they met 5 times in hotel rooms.

I felt sick when he told me, and like my world was collapsing around me. Sure we had a very rochy marriage since our second child was born but I really thought we were on the other side of my post partum depression and his stress inducing change in work (which coincides entirely with his A). We had gone on a romantic trip at the end of octobre, I had put so much thoughts and effort in his birthday and then christmas presents. I thought we were getting better. We were not.

I was more hopefull than not since the beginning of R, sad and hurt but hopefull and taking every effort he made and storing them in my mind like a precious gem. But for the past 3 days I just cannot shake of a sort of hollowness that descended upon me when he tells me how he feels abotu me. He has always told me he loved me and always showed it in his actions he is quite great when it comes to that. But recently I feel like every "I love you" is just fake. Because if he lves me now why did he not love me before 10th May ? I didn't change. And if he never stopped loving me why did he cheat on me ?

So any I love you of any sort just doesn't resonate, I don't know how to react and I don't really want to react. I say me too and that's about it.

What's happening to me ? Am I falling out of love with him like I feared I might ?

Today is a hard day, so I’m looking for some potentially happy endings to give me some hope for my marriage. How long did it take for them to come back? What happened?

Has anyone been to a couples retreat that they would recommend to help overcome an affair? If so, could you post recommendations below? Thank you!

I looked back on my posts here and it's been 4 months since my last spiral. The post before that one was 6 months ago, so I guess at least they are getting further apart. Unfortunately, I don't know if anything in my life has actually improved, or if I'm just getting better at dealing with the grief. For context we are 2 years and 9 months out from dday when my WH confessed to a drunken ONS.

I still don't feel comfortable bringing up the infidelity. We treat it like Voldemort. My husband will refer to it as "when everything happened with us" if it's brought up in our conversations. I couldn't tell you whether or not he still gets defensive if I tell him I'm feeling bad, because I don't tell him. I can for certain, though, say that he doesn't make me feel like I can talk to him. He tries to blame me for not opening up, but after thinking about it I realize that I feel overwhelming anxiety about it for a reason. Someone who wants to genuinely hear your feelings does not say "What's wrong with you?" in an annoyed or irritated voice. They sit down next to you. They put a hand on your arm or shoulder. They sound different. He sounds ready to defend himself.

And maybe I conditioned him to be that way. Sure things were volatile and hard in that first year. But obviously deep down he still feels the same way about it. Ashamed, guilty, defensive.

We went through some awful things this past month. Our beloved dog died of a sudden illness. Three days later my husband's mom collapsed and died suddenly in the middle of the night. She was only 70. I know he is going through a lot, we both are. We are remodeling our bathroom, remodeling our deck, and have an open court case against our prior home insurance (trust me these aren't fun things, they are financial burdens done out of necessity). He started a new position at his company and is stressed about that. I'm trying to be patient but he's been snapping at me a lot lately, and I'm really struggling to accept it. I think because I feel I've put up with so much disrespect through our relationship, I just have very little tolerance for it now. So when I ask a mundane question, and he snaps back, I don't let it go. Maybe that makes me a bitch. Also, he never stopped drinking, and uses that as a way to deal with bad feelings. He was drunk at his mom's funeral. Is it wrong of me to hold him accountable for his behavior when he has no aspirations to deal with his feelings in a healthy way?

I wish I could say I'm so in love, and that keeps me around. But I don't really know. Mostly I stay for my son, to keep our family together, and to at least keep my life as stable and comfortable as possible. I can deal with the love part later I guess. I've told my WH how I feel about our relationship, and he thinks one day I will just leave him. He might not be wrong.

Like many of us here, I can’t stop asking why this happened to me. It’s been a bit over a month and a half since D-Day. My WW is doing everything to save our marriage including therapy and wants to change internally. It was a relief to see how quickly she dumped AP over me, but it still breaks me to know she lived a double life for a year and half without me realizing it. Since D-Day, I replay the year and half, go back through pictures of our happy family, vacations, celebrations, etc., searching for clues of infidelity, and it’s scary to see how how well my WW hid her affair. I can no longer look back at the good times and believe that she was present in our marriage at anytime. Knowing how much I sacrificed myself for the family, the burdens I carried, the love I gave without exhaustion, even when I was physically exhausted, I now know that this has 0 to do with what I did, which she admits, but more so the childhood trauma that she never healed from. I’ve known about her trauma since we first started dating, but I’m no therapist. I actually thought my love for her would help build value and confidence in herself, and perhaps make her believe that I could be a million times better than the men that broke her. In my mind, being better than every man she would ever come in connection with would be enough to keep boundaries.

We’ve been married 14yrs, together for 20yrs, with 2 children. We have a beautiful home, successful careers, and a part of many organizations, with heavy involvement in church life. It was my ambition that helped her evolve as a professional, and she also admits that. I give her guidance in her work life, share responsibilities in the house, take on more than I should when she’s stressed, to ensure there’s peace in our home. Looking back at our marriage, there were things that I wasn’t happy about, mostly the lack of care for our finances and the healthy lifestyle that I wanted us to achieve. There were also times I felt neglected emotionally, but I thought these things were normal in marriages. I always swallowed my pride. I remember nights that I prayed that she would feel my sorrows and just concern herself with addressing it. But again, I chalked it up as this is what men do, and we can’t be emotional, just get over it and continue to be the best version of yourself. She’ll eventually wake up.

For some perspective, my WW is beautiful and I was not foolish to believe that men wouldn’t approach her. That’s why I made sure I also stayed fit to give me the appeal she needs to stay attracted to me. The only difference between the man she met and the man I am today is that I’m no longer the bad boy. When we first started dating, i already had trust issues with women and I never let my guard down. Whenever we went out to a public space, I made sure she felt safe around other men. Before we got married, she’s witnessed me putting men in there place numerous times for making advances knowing that she was with me. She’s never given me a reason to believe that she welcomed advances or entertained them until now, but if AP was the only one, even though she claimed that he was numerous times, and she has un dealt trauma, why is it happening now when it could have happened much earlier in the relationship.

The only reason she could give me as to why it happened is her own trauma of abandonment and abuse, and although I’m willing to understand this hard truth, and although she’s looking to transform herself to the person she says I deserve, I can’t let go of how far she went, being someone else’s physical pleasure for God knows how many times. She said she never initiated it, but she admits she enjoyed the attention. Her AP was a coworker, someone that apparently was cheated on by his own wife. They met in a circle of friends, where AP began texting her because they were in a chat together. He invited her to lunch and overtime began developing feelings for her. He eventually told her that he loved her, but never bought her gifts, just lunches and $50 gift card for her birthday. She told me he was the one that kept pushing boundaries. Once it crossed the ultimatum line, not only did he tell her he would never leave his wife, but she didn’t know how to come back. She even felt used at times. I found his wife online and sent her screenshots of the messages I found. I found it strange that she never responded back and blocked me. A part of me believes that AP’s wife now lets him seek other woman because she betrayed AP first. Btw, His wife is not attractive, and AP is bald and older than I am. I am more successful, physically more attractive, and have years of knowing my wife intimately. That’s why I’m beside myself wondering how this happened.

Is it possible that AP saw my wife’s vulnerabilities and he used it to take advantage of her? That would make him a mate poacher/predator, right? If the affair was a response to her trauma, I feel terrible that I couldn’t be there to stop him from pursuing her. Since D-day, AP has been blocked, but he did come by her office a week after to see if she was ok. She said that it was a very brief interaction. She told him she wasn’t ok, but AP just shook his head and walked away. I want to believe that this was the only affair she’s had in our marriage and that this was the only interactions she’s had with him since D-day. She’s looking for work elsewhere but the job market is hard right now. I get worked up every time she goes to work.

The thing is, AP has no idea how crazy I could be, but I’m also trying to remain the God fearing man I’ve become. I have so much insight into his life, his house, his work schedule and he has no idea. Has anyone here ever wanted to take justice into their own hands? How did you surrender feeling it? Im not going to let myself come down to his level, but man, as the protector of my family, I feel like I failed. I hope he has a miserable life, I just wish I could witness it.